Caffeinated Press, Inc.https://www.caffeinated-press.com
a triple shot of literary excellenceSat, 17 Mar 2018 16:55:46 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.4https://www.caffeinated-press.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/cropped-clipart-coffee-beans-i12-32x32.jpgCaffeinated Press, Inc.https://www.caffeinated-press.com
3232142247446Thoughts on Metonymy, Agency and Voicehttps://www.caffeinated-press.com/thoughts-on-metonymy-agency-and-voice/
https://www.caffeinated-press.com/thoughts-on-metonymy-agency-and-voice/#respondSat, 17 Mar 2018 16:55:46 +0000https://www.caffeinated-press.com/?p=7823A theme running through much of the writing I’ve critiqued in the last few weeks revolves around the concept of logical agency. Consider the following example:

The door slammed, sending a loud clang throughout the cellblock. Bob’s eyes scanned the room, looking for danger. Suddenly, a knife slashed from between two bars, almost nicking his forearm.

“Bob’s eyes.” Technically, Bob scanned the room—his eyes were just the instrument of that action. His eyes are not (presumably) independent of his conscious control.

“A knife slashed.” Knives don’t slash; people slash with knives.

In all three of these examples, the agent of the action is syntactically subrogated to the object of the agent’s intent. Put differently: the action is interrupted because although all three sentences are rendered in the active voice, the actor of each sentence is hidden and some inanimate object or constituent body part is substituted as the actor (the grammatical subject of each sentence). So it’s active-voice prose that feels passive in intent, because the object is emphasized instead of the subject.

Of course, there’s technically nothing wrong with any of the sentences, from a grammatical perspective. The literary device called metonymy is in full effect—in a nutshell, it’s a technique where some related object is substituted for another, as with calling a businessman a “suit.”

The challenge with metonymy, however, is that when it’s deployed too frequently, it tends to interrupt the voice of a passage and could confuse the point of view.

Aspiring writers sometimes gravitate toward metonymy because it emphasizes what the writer sees in his or her minds’ eye. Fantasy writers, for example, are notorious for allowing wands, swords and arrows to do the heavy lifting in an action scene, instead of focusing on the characters themselves.

When you’re writing in a first-person construct, metonymy is more challenging because it either breaks the POV or implies some sort of depersonalization between the character and his surroundings. Consider:

I didn’t think the alley looked safe, but I had no choice—the thugs were hot on my trail. My feet ducked to the left, hiding me behind a wall, and then a flash of steel glinted in my hand. Let the thugs come. I’m ready.

The problem here is that “my feet” didn’t duck left, I did. Thus, “hiding me behind a wall” implies that the POV character is not actually in control of his feet; he’s merely going wherever they autonomously take him. And then a “flash of steel glinted,” but how did it get there? Magic? This passage is much smoother as:

I didn’t think the alley looked safe, but I had no choice—the thugs were hot on my trail. I ducked to the left, hiding behind a wall, and then opened my knife. Let the thugs come. I’m ready.

Not only is the adjusted prose more concise, it doesn’t break the “I” perspective of the POV character. No inanimate objects or autonomous body parts wrestling for control of the scene. The POV character’s voice is not interrupted and there’s no confusion about who is the agent acting throughout these sentences.

Used well, metonymy can advance a story. Used poorly, it confuses the flow of the narrative and diminishes the voice of the POV character.

]]>https://www.caffeinated-press.com/thoughts-on-metonymy-agency-and-voice/feed/07823Introducing: “Establishing Yourself as a Professional Writer”https://www.caffeinated-press.com/introducing-establishing-yourself-as-a-professional-writer/
https://www.caffeinated-press.com/introducing-establishing-yourself-as-a-professional-writer/#commentsSun, 21 Jan 2018 18:27:49 +0000https://www.caffeinated-press.com/?p=7478Have you ever been curious about what it takes to grow from “curious about publishing” to “published author?” Consider signing up for our new brief online course, Establishing Yourself as a Professional Writer.

In this course, we will explore:

Your motivation for writing for publication

The reasons that traditional publishing can be so difficult to break into

Discuss 10 different things you can do to prepare yourself for traditional publishing

All you need to do is register then work through the 17 separate (but succinct!) modules. This course is text-heavy; you’ll get some observations in each module followed by a journaling exercise or a 30-day challenge. A one-question quiz at the end helps us gauge if we’re on-track with the content we’ve delivered. This course is not optimized for submitting to, or working with, Caffeinated Press—it’s a broader look at publishing for folks who need a bit of insight into how the literary world works.

This course is the first in a year-long series of seminars between Caffeinated Press and Write616 (formerly the Great Lakes Commonwealth of Letters). Each month—on the third Tuesday at the Avenue for the Arts in Grand Rapids—we’ll host a one- or two-hour in-person session, for a nominal fee to benefit Write616 and its continuing non-profit mission to advance authors throughout their career cycle. The content will also be released on the Caffeinated Press website. Sometimes for a fee, sometimes for free; we will use these seminars as a way to help keep our small press going instead of charging reading fees.

Because this is the first of our series, your feedback is welcome. In-depth comments may even earn you a gift certificate to our online store or a coupon code for an upcoming virtual seminar!

]]>https://www.caffeinated-press.com/introducing-establishing-yourself-as-a-professional-writer/feed/17478Welcome to 2018!https://www.caffeinated-press.com/welcome-to-2018/
https://www.caffeinated-press.com/welcome-to-2018/#respondMon, 01 Jan 2018 17:38:31 +0000https://www.caffeinated-press.com/?p=7230The clock struck midnight and—poof!—2017 was consigned to the mercy of the historians. As we look forward to 2018, eager to capitalize on all the new partnerships that have been brewing, we’d like to share some important updates about life at Caffeinated Press.

Our tradition, ever since our founding in 2014, has been to take November off to recharge. Many of our editors and most of our leadership team has participated in National Novel Writing Month. This year was no different. However, some adjustments to our leadership team extended that recharge period into December.

We released issues 2.3, 2.4 and 3.1 of The 3288 Review and transitioned the journal to a West Michigan-only semiannual celebration of arts and letters. And in 3.1, we finally actually started doing some real reviewing!

We worked with MiFiWriters for their Get Published! conference in Holland, Mich., and we led a spirited discussion about small-press publishing at the inaugural UntitledTown Book and Author Festival in Green Bay, Wisc.

We solidified many of our processes around editorial intake, project leadership and author onboarding, plus we consolidated our editorial guidelines from a daunting 6,400-word essay into a brief list of FAQ-hyperlinked reference materials.

We moved our office from the large and under-used cavern in the basement of the Ken-O-Sha Professional Building, to a much more cozy space on the main floor of the same building. We cut our square footage but we also significantly cut our rent costs.

We enjoyed a rousing poetry reading and launch event in November at Books and Mortar in Grand Rapids.

We nominated six worthy contributors for the prestigious Pushcart Prize.

As we move into 2018, we do so with both excitement about what lies ahead and with a certain sadness for some transitions that have come to our leadership team.

First, we wish the very best to AmyJo Johnson and Tabitha Maloley as they depart the board of directors. AmyJo joined us in 2015 as our chief marketing officer. She’s leaving to focus on a new entrepreneurial initiative in sync with her career arc. This is a happy move for her, and we’re glad she’s still sticking around our writing group. Tabitha joined us in 2017 and brought some order out of our editorial chaos. Now that she has a new day job, her availability has been curtailed—but she, too, is sticking around the writing group. Both of these departures are under happy circumstances for them; Caffeinated Press wishes both AmyJo and Tabitha the best in their new professional endeavors and we’re pleased we’ll still see them around, still writing their own stories.

Second, we’re announcing that Jennifer Brown and John Winkelman are both on sabbatical from the board. Jen was a co-founder and was instrumental in getting Brewed Awakenings off the ground. John, who joined us in 2015, has been the heart and soul of The 3288 Review. John will be on leave for all of 2018; he’s not resigning, but over the course of the coming year, his responsibilities will be handled by others.

We’re currently in conversations about one or two people potentially joining our board. More to come.

This leaves the day-to-day governance of Caffeinated Press to fall to Jason Gillikin and Brittany Wilson. To ensure that we’re on a long-term sustainable track, we’re focusing early 2018 on revenue capture through the expansion of our distribution network locally, as well as through the release of online seminars about the business and the craft of writing. These seminars will be offered, partially, with GLCL.

We do not expect to see any significant adverse effect on editorial operations beyond a few projects (primarily, Brewed Awakenings 3) being delayed a few months and a few others possibly being ended early. In the next few days, we’ll send a note to all our authors and editors offering closer insight into what’s happening behind the scenes.

For The 3288 Review, we expect that business will continue as normal. Although John is on hiatus for a year and our poetry editor—Leigh Jajuga—is stepping away to focus on the 85,000 things that ordinarily consume her day, we’re pleased to share that KT Herr will be joining the masthead as poetry editor and that we’ll be receiving substantial editorial support from Lisa McNeilley, PhD.

We’re bullish about the future.

Fun fact: Jason Gillikin, the co-founder and CEO of Caffeinated Press, is also the board treasurer of GLCL. That organization—a literary non-profit—is about to relaunch under a stronger brand with considerably more robust programming in 2018. We at Caffeinated Press won’t steal GLCL’s thunder, but the alignment of their programming and ours will become tighter. You’ll see it most clearly with a seminar series and with a greater cross-pollination of talent as our network grows larger, as well as more honed and cross-functional internship program.

After a careful late-December assessment of where we’re at, Jason and Brittany committed to:

Doubling down on our anthology and lit journal as premiere venues for local authors and poets to see their work in print.

Growing our direct-to-bookseller distribution program to ensure that our books get on shelves across the state.

Building a robust portfolio of on-demand, online courses about the craft and business of small-press publishing.

Continuing to publish long-form works, with five projects already committed and two additional under review.

Partnering with other local organizations on conferences, joint appearances, cross-product marketing and community engagement.

Our mission has always been to publish—to celebrate!—works of literary merit by creators local to West Michigan. We’re proud of what we’ve accomplished so far, and we look forward to a great upcoming year—a year marked by a new emphasis on network building and community growth.

May your own 2018 be your best one yet.

]]>https://www.caffeinated-press.com/welcome-to-2018/feed/07230ANNOUNCING: “Isle Royale from the AIR”https://www.caffeinated-press.com/announcing-isle-royale-from-the-air/
https://www.caffeinated-press.com/announcing-isle-royale-from-the-air/#respondSun, 17 Dec 2017 15:59:04 +0000https://www.caffeinated-press.com/?p=6980Caffeinated Press is pleased to announce the release of Isle Royale from the AIR: Poems, Stories, and Songs from 25 Years of Artists-in-Residence. This collection of essays, poems and songs was edited by Phillip Sterling—himself a former Isle Royale artist in residence—and features contributions from (in order of appearance):

Keith Taylor

Robert Root

Louis Jenkins

James Armstrong

Gary Lawless

Jan Zita Grover

Ann McCutchan

Xue Di

Andrew C. Gottlieb

Marianne Boruch

Kevin McKelvey

Kathleen M. Heideman

Glenn Freeman

Krista Eastman

Jeff Lockwood

Terri Bocklund

Phillip Sterling

Russell Brakefield

The volume also includes art and photography from jd Slack, John Hubbard, Claude Mikkola, Kathleen M. Heideman, Phyllis Fredendall, Robert deJonge, Phillip Sterling and Mary Brodbeck.

This delightful collection was blurbed by Ron Reikki and includes a forward from Glenn Freeman. We were pleased to nominate “What God’s Teeth Know” by Heideman and “No Blaze, No Trail, No Sign” by Freeman for a Pushcart Prize.

Interested in this book? Here’s what the back cover teases:

The Isle Royale Artist-in-Residence Program—familiarly referred to as AIR—has for 25 years been a source of inspiration and creativity for a variety of artists, writers, and musicians. In celebration of this milestone, Isle Royale from the AIR provides a representative sampling from 18 writers (and six Michigan visual artists) who have transfigured the park’s wild beauty into poems, stories, essays, songs, paintings, and photographs.

Isle Royale from the AIR is available to purchase directly from Caffeinated Press or by order through your local bookstore.

]]>https://www.caffeinated-press.com/announcing-isle-royale-from-the-air/feed/06980Celebrating Our Pushcart Prize Nomineeshttps://www.caffeinated-press.com/celebrating-our-pushcart-prize-nominees/
https://www.caffeinated-press.com/celebrating-our-pushcart-prize-nominees/#respondSun, 03 Dec 2017 15:49:20 +0000https://www.caffeinated-press.com/?p=6917Caffeinated Press is pleased to share that we’ve nominated six authors for the Pushcart Prize, an annual literary series honoring the best of small presses and literary journals.

Please join us in congratulating:

Margaret DeRitter for her poem “At the Top of Sleeping Bear Dunes” in The 3288 Review, Vol. 3, No. 1.

The event is a drop-in open-house style affair—come and go as you please, meet authors, enjoy readings from several of our published authors and network with fellow lovers of literary excellence over appetizers and beverages. No RSVP needed.

At this event, we’re proud to launch:

The 3288 Review, volume 3, issue 1. This is the first issue of our literary journal to feature contributors 100-percent sourced from West Michigan.

Isle Royale from the AIR—this anthology, edited by Phillip Sterling, features a collection of short stories, personal essays, poems, songs and art from 25 years of artists-in-residence at Isle Royale National Park.

Off the Wall: How Art Speaks—a unique collection by painter Mary Hatch and poet Elizabeth Kerlikowske, this book features a selection of Hatch’s paintings accompanied by a Kerlikowske poem inspired by it. A great interplay of verse and canvas.

In addition, we’ll offer a selection of books from our active catalog, including:

The One Friend Philosophy of Life—a period YA novella by Massachusetts author E. C. Hanlon.

Prior issues of The 3288 Review.

So show up. Buy some books from us and some books from the great guys at Books and Mortar. Meet, eat and greet.

If you believe in the value of local, independent bookstores and support local authors and local indie presses, then we look forward to seeing you on Wednesday night!

]]>https://www.caffeinated-press.com/attend-our-fall-boost-event/feed/06813Four Ways to Punch Up Your #NaNoWriMo Prosehttps://www.caffeinated-press.com/four-ways-to-punch-up-your-nanowrimo-prose/
https://www.caffeinated-press.com/four-ways-to-punch-up-your-nanowrimo-prose/#respondSat, 28 Oct 2017 16:53:22 +0000https://www.caffeinated-press.com/?p=6744Behold! National Novel Writing Month is almost upon us. As you get ready to write or revise your magnum opus, your friends at Caffeinated Press—presently embroiled in final line editing, so it’s top of mind—offer a few construction suggestions for you as you prepare for the Eleventh Month Frenzy.

Watch your main verbs. In the flow of the moment, using variations of has or was gets you through the word war. But those verbs are notoriously weak; they require prepositional phrases or other constructions to add the heft that the verb alone ought to supply. For example, “Sally was sure she had turned off the lights but she double-checked anyway” is tighter as “Sally verified that she turned off the lights.”

Think carefully about agency. People do things, but concepts don’t. For example, “The weight of the decision pressed hard upon him, unsettling his stomach” is problematic because weight isn’t a tangible thing that actually presses on stomachs. In small doses, this kind of literary device is fine, but in large doses it appears amateurish. The sentence is better as “His stomach soured as he contemplated his choices”—because the person is now the subject of the sentence, rather than the concept of weight. Or, “Excitement washed over her mind as she thought about her lottery winnings,” which is much better as “Winning the lottery excited her.”

Said is your friend. You need not consult a thesaurus; if 80 percent of your speech tags (or more!) rely on said, you’re fine. (And you are using speech tags correctly, right? You do know that simply appending speech to some random sentence isn’t correct style, right?)

]]>https://www.caffeinated-press.com/four-ways-to-punch-up-your-nanowrimo-prose/feed/06744Getting Ready for #NaNoWriMohttps://www.caffeinated-press.com/getting-ready-for-nanowrimo/
https://www.caffeinated-press.com/getting-ready-for-nanowrimo/#respondSat, 07 Oct 2017 19:54:27 +0000https://www.caffeinated-press.com/?p=6669It’s October. You know that that means: National Novel Writing Month is coming. We have a few brief announcements for you about 2017 NaNoWriMo, and then four tips for you as you write your novel.

Your friends at Caffeinated Press gently remind that for the month of November—when NaNoWriMo transpires—we shut down almost all non-essential business and editorial operations so our team can either participate or take a breather. So submissions, questions, etc. will likely be delayed.

Because we moved this summer to a smaller space, we cannot host a kick-off write-in on Halloween or permit regularly scheduled write-ins for the Ottawa County-Grand Rapids region. However, we will host Come Write In sessions. Check our online calendar for specific dates and times. During a CWI block, writers are welcome to come to our office to write in peace. No structured programming, just writing time. And we do not request any fees or RSVP, either. Just bring your novel and let the magic happen. (We’ll even supply free water, coffee, snacks and Wi-Fi, and you can browse our in-office literary library!)

That said, as people prepare for this year’s explosion of novel-writing productivity, we share a few bits of advice to help you on your journey.

Attend write-ins. Show up to events in the region. Meet new writers. Get feedback. Share best-practice tips. Although writing may be a solitary art, being read takes a community. Start building yours this year!

Use cloud-sync services. There is never, ever an excuse for losing a novel or a chapter. Don’t just save stuff to a hard drive or to a thumb drive. Use cloud storage services. It’s the 21st century, people!

Use Microsoft Word correctly. If you’re even thinking about seeking publication, and you’re using Word instead of a tool like Scrivener, then set the document correctly:

Rely on hanging indents; don’t use tabs.

Use styles for things like italics instead of pressing CTRL+I or clicking the slanty-I button on the toolbar (commercial publishing programs lose formatting unless you make a Word style).

Don’t worry about making it pretty. It’s the content, not the formatting, that matters!

Revise, revise, revise! If you finish by November 30, great—but remember, revisions start in December. Those peers you met at write-ins will be of great help to you as beta readers. Use your network!

NaNo is coming. Are you ready?

]]>https://www.caffeinated-press.com/getting-ready-for-nanowrimo/feed/06669ANNOUNCING “Jot That Down: Encouraging Essays for New Writers”https://www.caffeinated-press.com/announcing-jot-that-down-encouraging-essays-for-new-writers/
https://www.caffeinated-press.com/announcing-jot-that-down-encouraging-essays-for-new-writers/#commentsSun, 10 Sep 2017 13:47:41 +0000https://www.caffeinated-press.com/?p=6514Caffeinated Press is pleased to announce the release of Jot That Down: Encouraging Essays for New Writers. This collection of essays was edited by A.L. Rogers and features contributions from 19 published authors, poets and illustrators.

The book will launch at this year’s Jot Writers’ Conference, held on Friday, September 15, beginning at 7 p.m. Attendance is free and no RSVP is required. The event takes place at Baker Book House in Grand Rapids.

We encourage you to join us at the Jot Writers’ Conference to acquire your limited-run, first-printing copy and to support the great programming offered by Baker Book House. You’re also welcome to buy directly from Caffeinated Press; we accept orders now and we’ll ship them beginning Sept. 16.

Interested in this book? Here’s what the back cover teases:

You. Are. A. Writer.

Writing isn’t easy. Becoming established as a writer is even harder.

This collection of 19 short essays explores the writing life. Each offers tips intended to help new authors find time to write, to hone their craft and to prepare for publication.

There’s no magical shortcut to publication. New writers must pay their dues. These essays share practical, encouraging advice to help the next generation of wordsmiths more easily find their literary voice.

Most of the contributors—published authors, themselves—have spoken at the Jot Writers’ Conference, a free annual event in western Michigan emphasizing both the craft and the community of writing.

]]>https://www.caffeinated-press.com/announcing-jot-that-down-encouraging-essays-for-new-writers/feed/36514Wanted: Book Developerhttps://www.caffeinated-press.com/wanted-book-developer/
https://www.caffeinated-press.com/wanted-book-developer/#commentsTue, 22 Aug 2017 16:06:27 +0000https://www.caffeinated-press.com/?p=6236Do you enjoy turning a great story into a great artifact? Caffeinated Press needs your help. We’re looking for a motivated self-starter to serve as our primary book developer, to free our CEO to manage other responsibilities.

Our book developer will:

Receive final manuscripts from project editors and transform them into photo-ready print books and ebooks

We use the Adobe Creative Cloud suite — primarily InCopy and InDesign

Ebook development may be completed in Sigil

Assign ISBN data and coordinate relevant book metadata

Work with the CEO/CFO to assign trim sizes and price points for the book

Oversee development of the front/back/spine of the book cover according to house standards

Manage revisions to the final product in light of feedback from advance review copies

We’re open to individuals eager to perform this work, or faculty who can oversee this work on behalf of design students.

We expect a cadence of roughly eight to 10 books per year.

The book developer will receive named credit on each book’s copyright page (for portfolio purposes) and join our editorial leadership team. As with all our leadership roles, given our small size as a press, this work is compensated by means of ownership stake in the company and not through payroll.